Silas eyed him, then decided Allen could have his dinner if he left his girlfriend alone. “Classes are over,” he said. “It’s done.”
“Not until I say it is,” Allen grumbled, and Silas watched Summer and Allen finish off the plate, vying over the choice bits, their working relationship easy to mistake for attraction. There wasn’t a flicker of jealousy in Silas. He’d figured out long ago that Summer didn’t love Allen. She loved Silas and had chosen to work with Allen because Allen would never risk Silas’s anger by trying to move their working relationship to a new level. She’d been using Allen to keep serious anchors at a distance. But someday she would move on. And Silas had been holding her back.
Silas’s hands clenched. “Summer. I’m sorry.”
Knowing he wasn’t talking about last night, she leaned in to give him a kiss. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said, making it worse.
Allen’s expression went sour, fully aware of his part in the trio. “I’m tired of getting shot. How come I’m always the one who gets shot?”
Silas chuckled, his good mood hesitating as a slim, petite woman passed between him and the bar. She was limping, and he stood in a rush, recognizing her voice when she politely refused an unwelcome advance. Summer and Allen stared up at him in surprise. “Excuse me,” he said as he angled his bulk out.
“Who is it?” Summer asked, seeing his gaze on the woman, who was now standing with her back to them as she looked over the music selection at the jukebox.
“I’m not sure,” he hedged, pulse fast as he got free of the table and made his way across the room.
People got out of his way, and he still had no idea what he was going to say when he reached her. In a quandary, he froze. He couldn’t just walk up and say, “Hey, you owe me for screwing up my test grade.”
She stiffened, feeling him behind her. “I’m not a bitch for saying no. I came here to get away from everyone, okay?” she said as she turned. But her peeved expression shifted to one of recognition, and then she flushed the most comely shade of red.
“Hi,” he said flatly.
She recovered fast, running her gaze up and down his more casual clothes once, before leaning in to be heard over the noise. “Thanks for the migraine last night, Dr. Banner.”
His lip twitched at the thinly veiled reference to the Hulk. “It’s Dr. Denier, actually. I have to retake my exam, thanks to you.” The music changed, and his shoulders relaxed as the electronic country shifted to something a little more sophisticated, with brass and complicated rhythm.
“Yeah?” she said tartly. “I spent last night in the dark with a washcloth over my eyes.”
His shoulders regained their belligerent hunch. “There were three drafters on site amplifying it, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll let my best friend die next time.”
Her eyes flicked behind him to the table. He could feel Summer watching, sense Allen’s amusement. “Sorry,” she said, and he could tell she didn’t say it often, but when she did, she meant it. “It wasn’t you who double-drafted anyway. It was her.”
Silas turned at her caustic tone, wincing at Summer’s pointed, inquiring look.
The small woman leaned casually against the jukebox, effectively preventing anyone from changing the music. “But no one gets mad at tall, blond, and beautiful,” she finished dryly.
Silas’s attention came back to her, the way she looked against the jukebox with the light accenting her curves. “And you’re tiny and deadly,” he said. “What’s your beef?”
The woman’s eyes flicked to his, her surprise that he thought her competent obvious. Slowly she pushed herself up. “None of them deserve to pass,” she said frankly. “I heard what happened. No one blocked the 911 calls, and local authority was on the scene in eleven minutes. Everyone was focused on get in, get the tag, get out. Everyone had a cell phone, and no one did a search on who might have a gun, who carried a concealed, how many times the bar had been hit by armed thieves, and the chances they had an SOP for gunplay. No one even bothered to see if the back door was open.”
Silas abruptly lost his need to protest.
“There were six of them there,” the woman said, eyes tracking someone behind him, “and they caused a panic that made local and state news. My God, you got the proctor shot.”
“He’s not a proctor, he’s a prophylactic,” Allen said as he came up to them. “What would you have done?”
“Not what you did,” the woman said, sticking her hand out. “Peri Reed.”
“Allen Swift,” he said, taking it as Summer eased up beside Silas and Silas curved a hand around her waist. “You’re in the freshman class?” he asked quizzically.
“No, incoming senior,” she said brightly, and Silas exhaled, glad she wasn’t looking at him anymore. At his side, Summer gave him an askance look. “I did my military on the East Coast, but I can’t get the upper drafter classes there, so here I am.”